Arcania - Review Flood #5

TQCast says: "Gothic 4 is NOT a bad game, but it’s also not a great game. It’s most certainly not the first three games in the series, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. This new direction could be good for the series, as long as they take some constructive criticism for Gothic 5. […]" - 3.5/5 (XBox)

bit-tech concludes: "A sad day for the Gothic series then. In attempting to appeal to the mass market, JoWood has alienated its core fan base while not doing anywhere near enough to get the casual crowd on board. It's difficult to see who'll end up playing this, other than the developers, JoWood executives and us poor games reviewers." - 5/10, which according to their scale means Arcania is mediocre.

Well the upside of the whole thing is that for the first time I can remember, a game actually gets lambasted for thoroughly mainstreaming its gameplay. I mean according to theory they did everything right: the game looks good, has few bugs, its accessible, it takes the player by the hand, combat is easy, so you can live your power fantasies, linear structure and simple quests make sure casual players can hop in and out easily… And yet the verdict in general is "mediocre, a poor successor to the Gothic series" - and that even from North American sites, a market that never really embraced the Gothic series. Might this be a sign that we are starting to reach the bottom of the mainstreaming slump here?

Originally Posted by Gorath
[*]Tweakers.net - 4/5 (?) - My Dutch is a bit rusty. It seems like a pretty detailed and quite positve review. The only real weakness is the lack of "Gothic feel".

The review starts out with:

I'll treat Gothic 4 as *the* successor of Gothic 3, 2 and 1. That's why I will often make comparisons with the previous games. I will not so much compare with other RPG's. Risen, The Witcher and Oblivion all have different goals and every Gothic fan will agree that the Gothic RPG's can't be compared to other RPG's.

He calls himself a big Gothic fan and then does not acknowledge big similarities with Risen. A little red flag there.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
…. Might this be a sign that we are starting to reach the bottom of the mainstreaming slump here?

That would be great! Perhaps there is a new generation of young up and coming gamers who are getting tired of the same old boring button-mashing tripe served up game after game? I teach in a game dev course we run, and the students I interact with all seem to be interested in quite a diverse range of games, including some pretty challenging, non-mainstream games.

Yes, wouldn't that be great, also ironic. If Jowoods "streamlining for greed" intentions has a rebound effect to the benefit of the gaming fraternity (eg: greater challenging gameplay urgently demanded etc') - then that would be a good thing.

Thankyou Jowood - you may have inadvertently caused to bring about that which was never intended.

I can only hope you are right Wulf. I was chomping to buy this one when I first heard about it. Now looks like it can wait and I can grab it when it goes on sale. Sounds like one of those something to do when I am bored games. Sad really.

— Bart and Corwin should just admit that when it gets down to it, I will have the final say.